In line with the document, number of edible oil and fat industry’s enterprises, carrying out effective processing of technical cottonseed, will decrease from 52 to 27. Technical cottonseed will be only supplied to these 27 enterprises, which members of the Association of Edible Oil, Fat and Food Industry and included to the appendix of the resolution. Other enterprises, which were not included to the list, will process seeds of other oil-bearing crops (sunflower, safflower and others), purchased on agreement base.

Twenty-seven large enterprises of edible oil and fat industry with the state share of over 51% were included to the appendix. Among them are four joint ventures: Evrosnar JV LLC, El-Erk-Nur JV LLC, Kontinent-N Yog’ Moy JV LLC and Agrohizmat Shingdon JV LLC. Their total capacity makes up 2.714 million tonnes of cottonseed a year. New scheme will be effective from 2010 raw cotton crop.

Ministry of Economy was entrusted to assign enterprises of edible oil and fat industry to each cotton processing plant. The ministry will also annually determine the volume of technical cottonseed supply. The ready products, produced by enterprises of edible oil and fat industry (cotton oil, oilcake, pod and others), will be only realized through commodity exchanges.

The presidential resolution said that cottonseed processing and production of cotton oil at the enterprises, which were not included in to the list and domestic conditions, will be considered as violation of legislation. Persons, illegally processing cottonseeds and producing cotton oil, will be called to account, including criminal proceedings.

Uzbekistan suspended design and creation of new capacities on processing cottonseeds, except enterprises included to the list. The document said heads of the edible oil and fat industry’s enterprises will undergo certification in a month term and special attention will be paid to skills and experience.

Association of Edible Oil, Fat and Food Industry was entrusted to develop measures on increasing effective use of raw materials and ensure adherence to technological rules of production. Regional administrations were ordered to increase production of untraditional oil-bearing crops, including at dry lands. The resolution said that earlier issued “gold shares” for management of separate companies will be abolished.

According to the State Statistics Committee, Uzbekistan produced 223,300 tonnes of cotton oil in 2009, which is up 13.2% year-on-year. Uzbekistan also produces oil from imported soybean. Total capacity of all enterprises of the industry makes up 440,000 tonnes of edible oil, 52,400 tonnes of margarine, 105,700 tonnes of laundry soap, 16,200 tonnes of toilet soap and 2,400 tonnes of mayonnaise a year. Uzbekistan now holds third place on edible oil production in the CIS after Russia and Ukraine.

In 2009, the Uzbekistani government adopted decision to annually purchase 50,000 tonnes of soybean from Brazil till 2014 to improve edible oil supply to population. Uzbekistan will buy soybean in spring-summer time through foreign trade companies of the Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations, Investments and Trade in the result of tenders. Imported soybean will be exempted from customs duties. The purchase will be financed due to loans of commercial banks in national current, issued to enterprises of edible oil and fat industry at preferential interest rate of 8% APR, with their further exchange to hard currency in established order.

In July 2010, the government revised fixed rate of excise tax for vegetable (cotton) oil. In line with the Finance Ministry’s decree, the fixed rate of excise tax set at 657,900 soums per tonnes. The fixed rate was not changed to vegetable (cotton) oil, used for production of hydrogenated oil and edible oil “Uzbekistan”.